


Tendons too torn to Beg

by LoveLongSinceForgotten



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: And for a long time, Angst, Because that's what this fandom is best at, Finding out his best friend is an animated corpse ranks very high on that list, Fix It Fic, If you stare at it, John Watson has to put up with a lot of shit, Lots of Angst, M/M, Plus dark humor, Post Reichenbach, Sideways, Terribly ridiculous amounts of angst mixed with deep and abiding loyalty and love, Zombie Sherlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 05:52:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/883696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveLongSinceForgotten/pseuds/LoveLongSinceForgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is stepping towards him, far more quickly than his state of decay should allow.</p><p>John breathes in deeply, his eyes falling closed. He had always known Sherlock would be the death of him. He had said it often enough, lungs burning from running, scowl running across his face, Sherlock’s confident smile aggravating him on every level imaginable.</p><p>There was no one on this planet he would rather die at the hands of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tendons too torn to Beg

**Author's Note:**

> I MADE ZOMBIE FIC! Believe me, it needed to be done. I have yet to see even one fic where Sherlock himself is a zombie, and that deficit needed to be filled (not that it doesn't exist, just that I've never personally run across it). I was utterly in love with the concept and decided to run with it. This should be in two parts, and I'm hoping to have the next bit finished rather soon. Don't worry, I promise a happy ending. Well as happy as zombie!Sherlock will allow >>.

It was the small things that were driving John insane. One cup of tea made instead of two. A violin left unmanned in the corner, collecting dust and slowly going out of tune. And the paper. It was becoming an act of masochism on John's part to even contemplate reading the paper.

And yet...there he sits, eyes roaming over the newsprint, hand visibly shaking in his lap. He looks down at the offending appendage and fights the sudden urge to slam it against something. _Anything_.

His hand hasn't stopped shaking since the day Sherlock....He grips said hand on his knee, as hard as he can, forcing the movement to stop. No point dwelling.

He returns his attention once more to the newsprint, his gaze scanning the front page. "LOCAL POLICE STUMPED AT STRING OF STRANGE GRAVE ROBBERIES". Odd.

"BORING!"

The memory of Sherlock's voice reverberates clear as a bell in John's head.

Or Sherlock would stare at him in that one particular way that said he was intrigued. Wouldn't surprise John in the least. And then John would begin contemplating ways to avoid detection once they started spending late nights casing cemeteries.

Morally ambiguous and utterly ludicrous. Typical Tuesday for Sherlock. And John would give absolutely anything to be doing just that.

* * *

 

It isn't until a week later that John notices the newspaper again. "GRAVE ROBBERIES CONTINUED, POLICE STILL BAFFLED".

This time the article isn't on the front page. It's hidden away three pages in as a side article.

Huh. Then it’s gotten worse. The police are getting more out of their depth. Don’t want the public to know just how much.

John doesn’t realize he’s pulled out his phone and started texting Lestrade until the text has already been sent.

* * *

 

They only stole the bodies. This little tid-bit of information has John shuddering the moment he hears it. They weren't stealing any of the items from the graves. They didn't seem to have any bias as to whose graves they ransacked. Rich, poor, famous, obscure. There was seemingly no pattern.

Every few days a new cemetery would be ransacked. Each grave was found empty, the coffin splintered open, body gone.

Sherlock would have seen a pattern.

John feels entirely out of his depth.

* * *

 

"Come on then John. Think. _Think_ ". That look.

"I don't know Sherlock. I don't. So quit looking at me like I should be in on the game. I'm not.

Sherlock would have stared at him with that knowing and cocky smirk plastered across his face. John knows he would have.

"You know what, if you're not going to help me and you're just going to sit there making me feel completely bats-You can just leave."

"Alright". Sherlock’s form dissipates.

John wakes to an empty flat and a cold sweat.

"...i didn't mean it.

The darkness doesn't answer.

* * *

 

It’s been two weeks since the first article made the front page. One week since John began tracking the pattern. Two days since John started questioning his sanity.

John feels like there’s a wave of electricity embedded in his skin. Sherlock had spoken of something similar once, deep in the throes of boredom. John wonders whether this is what it feels like to be inside Sherlock’s head. John hates that he’ll never get the chance to ask.

The more conscious side of him has no idea why he’s doing this. The other side however, the side that John continues to refuse to indulge, the side that has him waking up each night sobbing and gasping for breath, knows exactly why he’s doing this.

If there's no pattern….no rhyme….no _reason_ ….then Sherlock's grave could be next.

That thought, above almost all else, is why John hasn't been sleeping at night.

John knows, objectively, that even if Sherlock’s grave were to be vandalized....it wouldn’t really matter. A body does not make the man. And the man, the man that was Sherlock....was dead the moment he'd hit the ground.

But that doesn’t stop John from almost doubling over with nausea the moment he begins to contemplate anything happening to Sherlock’s body.

John holds the map closer to his eyes as the text begins to swim.

He will figure it out.

* * *

 

A large part of John just simply wants to go and sit beside Sherlock’s grave and make sure it’s safe merely by his physical presence.

“Idiotic”. Sherlock’s familiar voice parrots inside John’s mind.

It would never work.

There was no unifying factor. There had been no time frame for any of the robberies. None of the cemeteries were connected. There was no consistent time that they had occurred. No way to gage just when and if Sherlock’s grave would be next.

John exhales deeply and fights the white spots swarming his vision.

* * *

 

Sherlock was smiling at him. John had never felt quite so disquieted in all of his life.

“Quit looking at me like that.”

Flat soulless eyes boring into his own.

“Please.”

The face tilts, the color in the irises dissolve. Cloudy slate instead of breathtaking green.

“…No.”

Blood begins sliding slowly down Sherlock’s face, his smile brightens but his teeth are worn, decaying and brown. John would scream if he were capable.

“…No. Please…no”.

John’s feet are bolted to the floor. He stares, transfixed, as Sherlock begins to deteriorate.

The tendons are beginning to snap. Sherlock’s jaw dislocates, the skin wearing thin. He stares, shudders, reaches out towards John. The fingers connect. John’s paralyzed body is dragged forward, the thing that was once Sherlock works its jaw beside John’s ear.

It speaks. The sounds are slurred, ripped from a half formed throat and almost useless jaw. But John would know that name anywhere.

After all, it is his own.

* * *

 

John wakes up to the sound of his own screaming.

He’s out the door before his eyes even have time to fully focus.

He will sit by Sherlock’s grave for all eternity if he has to.

* * *

 

It’s a small miracle that John’s made it to the cemetery alive. There had been absolutely no thought given to his surroundings as he drove. Every last street sign, light, and car had bled together into one faceless heaving mass.

John is incapable of thought.

Something is wrong.

 _Everything_ is wrong.

He’s running. He can’t remember when he stopped driving and started running. His vision is swimming, and there’s the beginning of a warning ache in his chest. He can hear nothing besides his own labored breathing and the heavy thud of his heart.

The grave comes into view. John stops. His knees buckle and he loses his stomach’s contents on the ground beside him.

Too late.

 _Again_.

His stomach is completely empty, but that doesn’t stop it from trying to expel even more.

How could he have let this happen? Again. He had failed Sherlock. Again.

**_Again again again._ **

* * *

 

A moan. A murmur. Shuffling steps.

John’s military training is the only thing that allows him to collect himself enough to stand.

The thieves. Has to be. John can’t bring himself to care less about how much faulty logic that particular thought process contains.

He turns on a dime, his gun raised, eyes flashing in hatred.

A familiar face peers back at him.

John’s heart stops.

* * *

 

John has never been the psychic of the family. Harry was always the one with a penchant for omens. The smell of flowers where there was none, dreams of water and clean sheets over frozen faces. Harry was the one, not John.

And yet, John has seen this apparition before. No more than an hour since. This was the face of someone he knew. Someone he _loved_. Someone who had, at one point, meant more to him than his very existence.

Someone who was now dead and in a drastic state of decay.

John fights to keep down the bile.

Nightmares aren’t supposed to be real. Every ounce of logic John has ever been introduced to tells him so. There is no monster under his bed. No beast in his closet. No way the corpse of his best friend could be shuffling towards him, his gaze vacant, his tendons visible.

John wavers where he stands.

The gun is still leveled at Sherlock’s head.

He can’t get a clear shot. Sherlock is less than ten steps in front of him but John’s hand is shaking so badly that he can’t even line up the gun.

All it would take now is one shot. One shot and this entire nightmare will dissipate into nothing.

 _Then what_?

The voice isn't even Sherlock's this time. It's John’s own voice ricocheting back to him inside his head.

_Yes, then what?_

Returning to his unadorned flat with just the sparse remnants of Sherlock’s memory to keep him company? The useless extra tea cups? The violin falling even more thoroughly into disuse? The headlines leering up at him with well kept secrets that he can't even begin to fathom?

**_I was so alone and I owe you so much._ **

He can’t go back to living like that.

John’s arm lowers to his side.

He can’t do this. He _can’t_.

It was more than fate could ask of him to have to watch his friend die twice. Much less by his own hand.

Decision made.

He wonders briefly what it will be like to die.

* * *

 

Sherlock is stepping towards him, far more quickly than his state of decay should allow.

John breathes in deeply, his eyes falling closed. He had always known Sherlock would be the death of him. He had said it often enough, lungs burning from running, scowl running across his face, Sherlock’s confident smile aggravating him on every level imaginable.

There was no one on this planet he would rather die at the hands of.

* * *

 

John’s back meets the ground first as he’s propelled backwards, Sherlock’s weight locked heavily across his chest. John’s eyes fly open despite himself and he’s met with the gruesome image of the inner workings of Sherlock’s jaw.

He waits for the sickening crunch. The feel of Sherlock's teeth embedding in his skin. The arterial spray and the resulting rush of warm blood pulsing down and away. He's a doctor. He can guess what the wound will look like. Possibly might have even seen worse.

He wonders briefly if they'll be able to identify the body when Sherlock's done.

A large part of him doesn't care.

He's strained tight as a bow, his entire body readying itself for an end that has yet to come.

John's eyes focus on Sherlock's open maw.

He hasn't bitten yet.

John can't for the life of him figure out why.

Sherlock seems momentarily sidetracked. His eyes are rolling in his head, his pupils seemingly trying to focus. A deep shuddering has taken up in his limbs, and in a stream of random consciousness John wonders if he might be having a seizure.

The movement stops. Sherlock leans forward and buries what remains of his face in John's neck. Sherlock takes a deep breath, the motion shifting John's hair in the process.

 _He's smelling me_. Sherlock is smelling him. His food. John would laugh were it not so ludicrous.

Any moment now. Sherlock’s distraction will end and he’ll plunge headfirst into John.

The waiting is hell.

John could push him off. Sherlock is larger, but thoroughly decayed. His reflexes should be slow if not entirely non-existent. This is John’s second chance. He could push Sherlock from him, aim, fire, and walk out of here, every one of his limbs intact.

John knows he won’t. His decision has been made. He isn’t leaving Sherlock alone this time. Never again.

Sherlock's jaw is working itself open and closed. John realizes with vague nauseating horror how similar it is to his earlier nightmare.

"oohnn"

John's breath catches. He couldn't have heard right. Couldn't have.

Sherlock...has spoken. His name. A slurred, barely discernible version of his name, but his name none the less.

Sherlock shifts, his body shuddering upwards as his eyes level with John's own.

Recognition. Frail and hardly noticeable but there.

John’s heart stops for the second time that day.

* * *

 

A moan. This time from an entirely different direction. Another.

Shapes begin shifting in and out of what little of John’s peripheral isn’t blocked by Sherlock’s form.

Shuffling footsteps. More than one set.

They are not alone in the graveyard.

John really should have seen this coming. There had always been more than one empty grave.

Cold air bursts across John’s chest as Sherlock is ripped off of him without preamble. Sherlock’s body swings in a wild arch as a pair of corpses pull at him from three different sides. Nails drag across John’s skin as another corpse focuses its attention on him. John rolls out of reach more on instinct than any coherent thought on his part.

Sherlock is fighting. And doing remarkably well, given the circumstances. His head connects with the first corpse, leaving a moldy cracking noise in its wake. John realizes with a mixture of relief and wonder that the sound came from the other corpse and not Sherlock.

 _He always did have a hard head_.

John’s vaguely nauseated at his own morbid humor.

Hands grip and grind against John’s frame as he’s once more pulled into the present. Two of them. Two of his own personal freakshows to contend with. His gun is on the ground, just out of reach. Knocked out of his hands when Sherlock tackled him. Wonderful.

He dives for it in one fluid motion, the corpses’ hands only providing minor resistance. He breaks free, and can hear the wrists of the two corpses breaking with the movement. John gets a small sense of satisfaction at that. His smugness is cut short however as his ankle is caught by the second corpse, apparently unconcerned by its newly broken wrist. Or possibly just pissed off because of it. John doesn’t want to fathom.

His body hits the ground hard, his knees taking the brunt of the treatment. He flips over unto his back, the half disintegrated hand still holding on. John’s foot connects with the appendage and smashes until it no longer resembles a human hand.

He whorls once more, his knees protesting as he scrambles toward the gun. He falls forward yet again, the other corpse landing heavily on his back. John’s hands grope fruitlessly for one more moment before they connect with the familiar solidity of his gun. His left arm comes up and connects with the corpses face, sending it sprawling backwards. John flips on his back and shoots before the thing even has time to properly hit the ground.

The second corpse is much easier. It had only stumbled so far as John’s feet. One well aimed shot through the head and it goes still as well.

John’s eyes immediately return to Sherlock.

Who is, remarkably, still holding his own.

The three corpses look far worse off than they had mere moments before. So many limbs to watch, so many to lose track of. John is having a hard time keeping track of where one ends and the others begin.

They have Sherlock by any hold they can grab, but he’s obviously having none of it. He bites down hard on one hand as it makes a grab at his shoulder. A foot is mutilated as it comes too close to Sherlock’s striking distance. His feet slam into the offending appendage over and over until it’s no longer recognizable. John recognizes the similarity to his own earlier actions and wishes he didn’t.

John stands, leveling the gun, waiting for a clear shot.

Sherlock has one by the neck, his teeth rooted deep in the other corpse’s skin. The other two are pushed backwards as Sherlock slams the one he’s currently biting into the ground.

There it was. An opportunity. Two easy shots. John takes them, the corpses motionless now that their heads have been blown apart.

The other corpse has stopped moving as well. Sherlock is making quick work of its flesh, ripping large chunks off with each bite he takes.

John stares.

And stares.

Sherlock hasn’t stopped.

The first corpse is all but destroyed, his flesh pot-marked and lacerated from all of the bites. Sherlock’s moved on to the next. It’s at this exact moment that John realizes that Sherlock’s fighting hasn’t just been an act of preservation from their unexpected onslaught.

Sherlock was eating them.

John can’t find any logical reason why that simple fact hadn’t occurred to him earlier.

Of course he was eating them. He was a zombie.

And there it was. The one word John had forced himself not to think the entirety of this ordeal. Zombie. Not corpse. Reanimated living _thing_. That’s what Sherlock was now. A thing.

John can feel the rivulets of tears winding down his face, but he decides to ignore them.

John’s eyes are closed. He can’t remember closing them. The sounds are only just barely less disturbing than the images but John can’t bring himself to watch. Seeing Sherlock like this makes something in John feel like it’s cracking.

The sounds stop. John opens his eyes without wanting to.

Sherlock has stopped.

He’s staring, eyes wide, gaze directed towards John.

He’s entirely covered in blood. John hates his medical expertise at that moment because he can identify almost all of the other substances Sherlock’s covered in. John’s eyes dart towards what remains of the bodies.

No longer indefinable as human.

 _I wonder what Scotland yard will make of that_. The thought sickens him.

Sherlock’s gaze still hasn’t shifted. He’s watching him. Motionless.

And then the world is ripped out from under John as a new set of hands grip his ankles and slam him full force to the ground.

* * *

 

Another one. John hadn’t expected there to be any more. Already there were more corpses in this particular grave yard then there had been on any of the other occasions.

Surprise is this new corpse’s advantage. John is overwhelmed within seconds, the creature climbing its way inelegantly up John’s body. Hands scratch at his throat, his windpipe almost closing shut under the pressure. The corpse shifts, its hands slamming into the side of John’s face, pushing it to the side. It bends, and lunges for John’s throat.

Contact made. Teeth skim John’s throat, working at his flesh. It hasn’t broken the skin yet, but not for lack of trying. Its head bobs backwards as it makes to try for another section of John’s neck.

It never has the chance.

Because it’s no longer there. The corpse has been tackled to the ground, a familiar shape slamming the creature’s head into the ground over and over again.

Sherlock.

John shifts into a sitting position and can’t turn his eyes away as Sherlock makes quick work of what remains of the corpse’s flesh.

Another one.

_How many people am I going to have to watch my friend eat today?_

And then….John laughs. And laughs. And laughs.

Something’s snapped.

He knows it has. Something fundamental, and right. Something familiar and sane. Something that had, at one point, meant something to him.

John Watson can feel a large part of his humanity snapping in two. And every single aspect of himself couldn’t care less.

* * *

 

John stands to his feet and walks towards where Sherlock is still busily consuming what remains of the corpse. He doesn’t know what possesses him when he reaches out and lays a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder, but he does it anyway.

Sherlock turns, looking like the most visceral interpretation of death John has ever seen. Eyes clouded and red tinged. Body doused in virtually every substance found in the human body. Stance feral and poised for attack.

But he doesn’t attack John.

John’s counting that as a good sign.

Sherlock’s gaze is locked with his own, and John steadily returns it. Recognition. This time even more distinctive than before. John’s heart clenches in his chest.

Sherlock goes stock still. He spasms for a moment, his entire body shuddering before his eyes roll back in his head. John’s breath catches. He hits his knees hard as he catches Sherlock before he can slam into the ground behind him. John ignores the sound of his knees hitting the entrails of the corpse Sherlock just finished off.

He doesn’t have much sanity left. He really needs to reserve at least some of it.

Especially with Sherlock laying stock still in his arms. Not breathing.

John’s hands frantically search for a pulse, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. After what feels like an eternity of fumbling, John finds it. There. Faint and almost indiscernible. Which means that Sherlock’s current state still depends on his heart to maintain his body. John files that away for future reference.

And then finds himself staring down at the prone body of his now reanimated friend wondering what in the bloody hell he was supposed to do next.

* * *

 

The cemetery is deserted. Has been throughout the entire ordeal, and John thanks every deity he can think of for that particular fact. But there is no way of knowing just how much longer their luck is going to hold out.

His options are limited. Dragging is the first idea that pops into John’s head, but he dismisses it instantaneously. Dragging would cause damage-Sherlock’s current state was frail at best, outright breakable at worst.

Carrying it would have to be.

Sherlock is far heavier than John expected, but far lighter than John’s peace of mind appreciates. John stalwartly ignores every grotesque smell assaulting his nostrils as he shifts Sherlock’s body into position. Bridal style had seemed the most practical idea in concept, but was proving much different in practice.

That little something that had cracked in John earlier is breaking entirely in two, and it takes everything within him to stop focusing on just how fragile Sherlock looks in his arms, despite his blood drenched and decomposed state.

He’s on his feet in a moment, his leg not faltering in the least. His limp had returned mere days after Sherlock’s death. Now there wasn’t even a moment’s worth of hesitation from it. Come to think of it, he had run when he had first arrived at the cemetery, hadn’t he?

 _Just like old times_. The thought makes him more than a little sick.

He shifts Sherlock just slightly in his arms, wraps his hands more securely around his form, and begins to walk. It had taken him less than two minutes to run through the cemetery, it takes him five to get back to the car. Urgency is inching its way up his spine, but John chooses to ignore it in favor of carefully measuring his pace. He doesn’t want to jostle Sherlock any more than he absolutely has to.

Before Sherlock’s death, John had never learned to drive. It had never really been a problem. It wasn’t atypical at all for a Londoner to have never learned to drive, and John had always been perfectly content to be joined in their ranks.

Until public transportation was no longer an option. Until walking became a practice in masochism. Until John became recognizable as the partner to one Sherlock Holmes, that fraud of a detective, and John’s ability to drive became a necessity. For both his state of being, and the safety of those ignorant enough to approach him.

Lestrade had forced him into a driving course the third time John was taken into custody for assault.

John had resented it at the time. Now he was so grateful he could cry. Lestrade was getting a complimentary pint the next time their paths met.

For a moment John contemplates placing Sherlock into the trunk. Yet another thought that gets discarded instantaneously. John just can’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he says another silent prayer of thanks, this time because he had been so abstracted when he first arrived at the cemetery that he hadn’t taken the keys out of the ignition. All he has to worry about is keeping Sherlock as still as possible as he opens the door. He manages, barely, with the least amount of movement possible.

Getting him into the back seat is yet another matter. John’s not entirely sure how he manages it to be honest, at least without breaking some part of Sherlock’s frame, but he attributes it to slow movements and sheer force of will. He shifts Sherlock’s form in the closest approximation of comfort he can manage, Sherlock’s unconscious sprawl looking oddly effortless and natural. John doesn’t understand how that’s even physically possible, given the situation, but Sherlock was always able to achieve the impossible.

John doesn’t remember the ride home. _Home._ Back to 221B Baker’s Street. It had been a long time since John had termed their flat home. It is that particular thought process, John thinks, that finally sets off the panic attack.

He manages to get the car parked and the keys out of the ignition before his body begins to shake.


End file.
